In the current era of the transnational circulation of ideas and technologies, social movements in different parts of the world adopt certain ideas and technologies through direct and indirect involvement in transnational networking. A significant aspect of such transnational linkage can be observed in a new type of voluntary association galvanized in urban South Korea, particularly the capital city of Seoul, since the end of military rule in the late 1980s. Commonly called “citizens' organizations” (simindanch'e) or “citizens' movement organizations” (siminundongdanch'e), these voluntary associations consciously aim at the socioeconomic, political, and environmental improvement of society through legal and policy reforms. In their objectives, this new type of voluntary association resembles the liberal citizen advocacy groups or “professional movement organizations” (McCarthy and Zald Reference McCarthy and Zald1973) that thrived in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.Footnote ¹ For the past decade and half or so, these progressive citizens' organizations have enjoyed their heyday in influence and public visibility as the representatives of revived civil society; they have faced a relative decline, however, since the mid-2000s.

How do we account for the rise and relative decline of these progressive citizens' organizations in urban Korea? Do they reflect a universal structural pattern in the institutionalization of social movements as part of the process of democratization stemming from socioeconomic development? What roles do the state, the market, and culture play in shaping these organizations that constitute Korean civil society? And how do social structures of inequality such as class and gender affect individual access to progressive citizens' organizations?

This article explores these questions, focusing on the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), which became a leading force in the revitalization of civil society in post–military rule Korea.Footnote ² This case study shows the PSPD as a hybrid organization that combines a citizens' advocacy group of professional activists focusing on policy and legal reforms with a traditional membership organization attending to members' own interests and participation. As will be discussed, this hybridity reveals the development of a social movement organization that is not only parallel to the U.S. model of citizen advocacy groups but also differentiated from it. The focus on the complex interplay between the state, the market, and culture in the rise and relative decline of this type of organization in the specific context of post–military rule Korea enables us to appreciate a nuanced understanding of civil society that goes beyond cultural relativism and liberal universalism. This complex interplay involves the following components: (1) the cultural construction of civil society in post–military rule Korea, (2) the state's regulatory role through its policy concerning citizens' organizations and lack thereof, and (3) the dual role of the market as the model of financial autonomy for these organizations and source of a threat to their autonomy.

The cultural construction of civil society refers to the popular understanding of civil society that underlies the rise of progressive citizens' organizations and their relative decline. Such an understanding has implicitly and explicitly defined civil society as space for social movements to promote the public interest and as a counterbalance to the market; these social meanings of civil society reflect not only the legacies of the repression and active co-optation of civil society by the state and the collusion of the state and big business, but also current efforts to deal with the process of neoliberal globalization. These past and present forces underscore political neutrality and financial autonomy from the state and the market as the moral imperatives that are crucial to the rise and relative decline of citizens' organizations such as the PSPD and the hybrid form they take. The interplay among the state, the market, and culture is complex because political and economic factors provided a structural context in which the citizens' organizations acquired these social meanings.

This study also shows the extent to which gender and class circumscribe individual access to citizens' organizations. Despite the conscious formulation of its organizational identity as a transclass and gender-neutral organization, the PSPD's membership has been dominated by college-educated, middle-class men in their thirties and forties. Its female members are predominantly single, college-educated women without children, or married women who have completed childrearing.

Beyond Cultural Relativism and Liberal Universalism: Interactive Roles of the State, the Market, and Culture in Shaping Civil Society

Recent studies of civil society have called for nuanced and context-specific analyses of voluntary associations, scrutinizing the normative view of undifferentiated civil society as a vehicle for fostering and sustaining democracy (Alagappa Reference Alagappa2004; Eliasoph Reference Eliasoph1998; Schwartz and Pharr Reference Schwartz and Pharr2003; Skocpol Reference Skocpol, Skocpol and Fiorina1999; Walsh Reference Walsh2004). Approaching civil society as an analytical concept to reflect on a wide range of associations in various societies allows us to move beyond relativistic arguments about civil society as a “Western concept” that cannot be applied to non-Western societies or liberal universalism; such an approach assumes the growth of civil society as a result of the spread of the market economy. While the normative view of civil society highlights its autonomy from the state and the market, a nuanced and context-specific study of voluntary associations requires the investigation of their changing relationships to the state and the market.Footnote ³ Attention to culture as a framework for interpreting associational activities by actors themselves is also crucial to nuanced studies of civil society's relation to the state and the market.

Studies of civil society in contemporary Asia underscore the legacy and presence of strong states that have suppressed the growth of autonomous organizations (Hardacre Reference Hardacre and Wuthnow1991; Koo Reference Koo1993; White Reference White1996). This legacy is often identified as an essential aspect of Asian culture that is hostile to the development of civil society. Although there is some truth to this view, if we reduce civil society to a certain type of organization, this assumes a static nature of the state and culture without a deeper understanding of how imported ideas and practices concerning civil society are actively reshaped by local situations. As Susan J. Pharr argues (Reference Pharr, Schwartz and Pharr2003), it would be more fruitful to approach the state as a continuum of regulatory power that has differential effects on different types of associations through its direct and indirect policy on voluntary organizations and the lack thereof. From this perspective, modern states in various social and historical contexts are involved in shaping civil society to varying degrees. This case study of the PSPD illuminates how the legacy of the authoritarian state serves to define the moral imperatives of citizens' organizations in terms of their political and financial distance from the state. It also illustrates how these imperatives led to the relative decline of progressive citizens' organizations under the democratic state that allowed and facilitated their growth.

Although studies that focus on the regulatory role of the state in shaping civil society tend to pay less attention to the role of the market, the market is an increasingly significant force in the development of civil society in the current era of neoliberal globalization. Despite the analytical distinction between the market and civil society, voluntary organizations depend on donations and grants from the business sector; they have also adopted modern marketing to publicize issues and recruit dues-paying members. As observed in the United States, the market model permeates citizen advocacy organizations that aim to influence national policy. During the late twentieth century, this type of national organization replaced locally based associations (Berry Reference Berry, Skocpol and Fiorina1999; Skocpol Reference Skocpol2003; Watt Reference Watt and Wuthnow1991). In such advocacy organizations, regular payment of membership dues has replaced members' direct involvement in electing representatives and running their organizations. Warning against the implosion of the boundary between citizens and consumers (Crouch, Eder, and Tambini Reference Crouch, Eder and Tambini2001), some criticize that this “market type” of organization (Lo Reference Lo, Morris and Mueller1992) is conducive neither to face-to-face participation nor to transclass interaction among members as fellow citizens; it turns civic participation into the “obligatory customership” of consumers with policy preferences (Somers Reference Somers, Crouch, Eder and Tambini2001, 25). Yet Fábio W. Reis (Reference Reis, Jelin and Hershberg1996) argues that in the Latin American context, citizen advocacy organizations bring together self-interest and a concern for collective well-being. Reis critically rethinks the dichotomy of altruistic civic solidarity and the self-interest of the market and recognizes the potential for their convergence. As South Korea experiments with procedural democracy in the era of neoliberal globalization, progressive citizens' organizations have tried to embrace the market model, with varying degrees of success, as a way to maintain their autonomy from the state and thereby increase their moral authority. While the PSPD as a leading citizens' organization has shown the highest reliance on its membership fees among these organizations, it has suffered from financial vulnerability. It has also developed its identity as a counterbalance to the market in the face of the market's ascendancy.

Studies examining the changing roles of the state and the market in shaping civil society commonly overlook culture. If used at all, as the literature on “political culture” shows, culture is assumed to be a reservoir of essentialized ideas and practices that hinders the development of civil society in Asian societies (Huntington and Harrison Reference Huntington and Harrison2000; Pye Reference Pye1985). Or, culture is employed to highlight qualitatively different alternatives to civil society, as is observed in more sophisticated studies (Chakrabarty Reference Chakrabarty2000; Weller Reference Weller1999). While this line of inquiry is useful to counteract Eurocentrism in the global production of knowledge concerning civil society, it can produce and reproduce artificial and essentialized differences between societies for academic and political consumption.Footnote ⁴ Such inquiries also reflect postcolonial sensibilities generated by past Western colonialism, current neocolonialism, and cultural imperialism; they are marked by an eagerness to affirm the autonomy of non-Western societies and elective affinity to a cultural relativism that espouses radical differences or even incommensurability between societies. As a foil to this position, liberal universalism continues to assume the Western experience as the normative standard, rendering cultural understandings irrelevant to the development of civil society.

In the face of this apparent impasse, it is constructive to approach culture as a framework for interpreting the meanings of civil society and the involvement in voluntary associations by actors themselves. In highlighting the significance of culture here, I do not mean to treat culture as an isolated causal factor, but rather to underscore its process of generating meanings in a structural context shaped by political and economic factors. The case study of the PSPD, using in-depth interviews with its thirty-one members, including four staff and two officials, enables us to understand how its hybrid form is both parallel to the model of advocacy groups in the United States and differentiated from it in the specific cultural context.

The focus on members of the PSPD also allows us to discern that social structures of inequality permeate civil society and result in unequal access to voluntary associations and uneven distribution of the benefits that come from participation (Schlozman, Verba, and Brady Reference Schlozman, Verba, Brady, Skocpol and Fiorina1999; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady Reference Verba, Schlozman and Brady1995). In the United States, for example, educated middle- and upper-middle-class individuals tend to represent a majority of the membership of citizen advocacy organizations, and their interests are at times opposed to those of lower-class groups (Berry Reference Berry, Skocpol and Fiorina1999, 370; Skocpol Reference Skocpol, Skocpol and Fiorina1999, 494–97; Watt Reference Watt and Wuthnow1991). A recent study that compares the United States with Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom reports that while the United States witnessed a clear decline in civic participation among women (but not among men), especially after 1975, three other countries showed relative stability in such participation during the period from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s. This study suggests that given such broad commonalities as a capitalist economy and a democratic government among the four countries, the gender-specific American decline is attributable to the lower level of state support for child care in the United States (Andersen, Grabb, and Curtis Reference Andersen, Grabb and Curtis2006). The comparable patterns of barriers tied to class and gender are observed in the PSPD despite its conscious identity as a gender-neutral and transclass citizens' organization. Before the analysis of the interplay between the state, the market, and culture in shaping the PSPD, I will turn to profiling this organization.

Profile of the PSPD and the Interviewees

Founded in 1994 by some 200 scholars, lawyers, and political activists in Seoul, the PSPD has arguably been a leader among the citizens' organizations that promote progressive social change through legal and policy reforms.Footnote ⁵ As one of the largest citizens' organizations in urban Korea, the PSPD consists of approximately 200 officers (imwŏn), 60 activist staff (kansa), and 14,000 dues-paying members (hoewŏn) (PSPD 2004, 345).Footnote ⁶ The officers are also dues-paying members who agree to play leadership roles because of their legal and scholarly expertise or their prominent roles in the democratization movement; while some officers are symbolic figureheads, others make important decisions about PSPD objectives and activities. The staff, made up of full-time workers paid from membership fees, takes care of the day-to-day workings of the organization. Members pay monthly fees or, occasionally, lifetime fees and attend events and meetings. They read the periodicals and newsletters and contribute to Internet discussions on various issues. Some active members volunteer to support the staff as technical or clerical assistants, receptionists, consultants, or program coordinators of members' small group activities. Among these volunteers, some enthusiastic and capable members are asked to serve on decision-making committees.

The thirty-one interviewees whose voices inform the analysis of the PSPD in this paper are composed of twenty-five lay members, four full-time staff, and two officers. Although they do not constitute a random sample, the interviewees represent various types of members, in terms of their motivation for joining the PSPD: (1) converted members who grew up in very “conservative” families and communities but became “progressive” after some eye-opening exposure to different views on social issues and Korean history in the process of attending college, traveling to foreign countries, or meeting and interacting with influential individuals; (2) underprivileged members who personally experienced poverty and unjust treatment and came to yearn for social change—this group includes many who were directly or indirectly victimized by the deeply entrenched ideology of anticommunism that discriminated against family members and relatives of real and alleged communists in education, employment, and foreign travel; (3) activist members who were involved in student movements and then later joined the people's movement (minjungundong) and now the citizens' movement (siminundong) in pursuit of social change; (4) members who had retired or completed childrearing (unpaid care work) and then searched for a meaningful life in social service; (5) members who joined the PSPD to solve their personal problems in housing, employment, or health care; and (6) members who joined to build a personal network and power base to enter politics. Overall, the lay members interviewed can be described as more active than the average member, in that in addition to paying dues, they also attended meetings and events.Footnote ⁷

As indicated in its motto, “Justice and human rights in Korean society through the people's participation,” the PSPD has monitored such powerful social institutions as the state bureaucracies and large corporations and has sought grassroots support for its watch-dog activities. To attract individual members' attention, the PSPD has also paid attention to “reclaiming small rights” in daily life in order to build a “clean society without corruption.” These focuses and orientations are reflected in its organizational structure.Footnote ⁸ While similar to citizen advocacy organizations in the United States in terms of its focus on influencing national policy (Berry Reference Berry, Skocpol and Fiorina1999; Skocpol Reference Skocpol2003; Watt Reference Watt and Wuthnow1991), the PSPD has a different financial base. Unlike its U.S. counterparts, which are financed by grants from public or private foundations (Skocpol Reference Skocpol, Skocpol and Fiorina1999), the PSPD relies on membership fees as the primary source of funds. This condition contributes to its hybrid identity as a policy advocacy organization run by professional activists (full-time staff) whose membership base is crucial to its survival. As discussed next, this mixed nature is shaped by the complex interplay between the state, the market, and culture.

The Interplay between the State and Culture in Shaping the PSPD

The revival of civil society in Korea after the transition to procedural democracy involved not only the restoration of what had once been suppressed, but also the growth of the new civil society sector, composed of approximately 400 progressive citizens' organizations of various sizes (Hong Yun-gi Reference Yun-gi and Hong2004, 57; Moon Reference Moon2005, chap. 4). Throughout the 1990s, these new citizens' organizations replaced dissident social movements and organizations, which had become radicalized by state violence and repression. These new citizens' organizations were differentiated from older associations by their concern for social change (rather than focusing on charitable activities, encouraging fellowship among members, or serving as election machines for political elites), effected through the monitoring of state institutions and large corporations. These progressive citizens' organizations became the voice of a revived civil society and enjoyed public trust, but they have faced a weakened position since the mid-2000s.Footnote ⁹ In particular, as the leading force among progressive citizens' organizations, the PSPD has witnessed such change in a more amplified manner. The relative decline of the PSPD and progressive citizens' organizations in general is highlighted by the consolidation in late 2006 of conservative organizations into the Democratic Society NGO Network (Dong-A Daily, November 7, 2006) and the December 2007 election of Myŏng-bak Lee, the presidential candidate of the conservative Grand National Party.

The state has played a complex role in the rise and relative decline of the PSPD and its evolution as a hybrid of professional activist advocacy and membership organization. The democratic state loosened repressive control of voluntary associations and tolerated the formation of progressive citizens' organizations. Taking advantage of this opening, these citizens' organizations constructed civil society as a “space for social movements that [would] pursue public interests” rather than the specific interests of particular individuals or social groups (Choi Reference Jang-jip2002, 183; see also Kim Reference Chŏng-hun and Hong2004, 46).Footnote ¹⁰

This communitarian view of civil society is echoed in my interviewees' understanding of their involvement in the PSPD. Despite their differences in age, gender, socioeconomic status, and life experiences, all of the interviewees link their participation to a concern for the “public interest” (kongik) and a desire to live in a “just, good, or humane” society. There are, however, at least two competing views of the public interest articulated by the interviewees, and at times even expressed by the same interviewee. The first view defines the public interest mainly as “the improvement of society as a whole,” rather than just of one group or a few groups. The second view shows a populist understanding of the public interest. Interviewees with this view argue that “ordinary people who do not have much money, political influence, or privilege” represent society as a whole because they also constitute a majority of Koreans. These ordinary people are understood as those who belong to the middle and lower strata of society. Some interviewees point out that this majority is made up of various types of minorities in society. It is noteworthy that many interviewees acknowledge that elites (e.g., upper-strata people with money, political power, and privilege) are part of Korean society, but do not consider their interests to constitute the public interest.

This view of civil society is different from the accepted practice in the United States of pursuing specific individual or group interests in the voluntary sector. In the United States, both businesses and citizens use advocacy organizations to lobby the government in order to influence policies (Skocpol Reference Skocpol, Skocpol and Fiorina1999, 490). Because the pursuit of particular individual and group interests in civil society remains culturally illegitimate in Korea, the notion of “group selfishness” (chibdanigijuŭi) is frequently deployed by conservative and progressive social groups alike to criticize opponents and undermine their credibility. While such a communitarian and populist view of civil society exists in the United States as one among many views, it exists as the dominant understanding of civil society in contemporary Korea. Its dominance needs to be understood in conjunction with the legacy of the authoritarian state that actively administered voluntary organizations and used them to implement its policies and win elections.

Because of the state's dominance over civil society, the public became very cautious about using organizations to further any political interests. The negative role of the authoritarian state in shaping the meaning of civil society not only contributed to the identity of the PSPD as a vehicle for promoting the public interest, but also accentuated political and financial distance from the state as imperatives for the moral authority of citizens' organizations in general. Understood as “political neutrality” and financial autonomy from the state among the public, compliance with moral imperatives has been central to the rise and relative decline of the PSPD and progressive citizens' organizations in general. Based on their moral appeal to public interests, the progressive citizens' organizations gained popular support and recognition among the majority of Koreans during the past decade and half or so.Footnote ¹¹

From early on, concern about political neutrality has affected the organizational structure of the PSPD. To avoid possible abuses of its social capital—credibility built from its solid record of effective and consistent work—by individuals and groups seeking their own political power bases, the PSPD has been very reluctant to create local branches. It has allowed a few chapters in cases in which a locally formed organization wanted to adopt the PSPD's name and was willing to sign the local chapter agreement. There are three such chapters nationally, in Ŭijŏngbu (1998) Taegu (1998), and Ulsan (2001). As a result, the PSPD is an organization that emphasizes participation but has a few local chapters. Such concerns about political abuse are understandable in the Korean context, in which local organizations have long served as arms of the political elite. There have even been a few cases of individuals fraudulently posing as officers of the PSPD in public, which damaged its public image and standing.Footnote ¹²

To maintain political neutrality, the officers of the PSPD are not allowed to hold political party membership during their service.Footnote ¹³ Yet in pursuing its objective to bring about social change through policy and legal reforms, the PSPD has performed major political party functions such as the identification of social problems, the analysis of current policy, and the proposal of alternative policy (Yun Reference Sang-ch'ŏl and Hong2004, 27). This is because political parties in Korea have long failed to represent the material interests of various social groups through policy formulation and analysis, and progressive citizens' organizations in general have filled the lacuna.Footnote ¹⁴ This active political engagement makes it very difficult to maintain the ideal of political neutrality. This difficulty is further heightened because the ideal of political neutrality is at times construed not only as nonpartisanship (pidangp'asŏng), but also as political indifference (pijŏngch'isŏng) in the context of contemporary Korea, where the public is deeply distrustful of institutionalized politics; citizens' organizations are forced into a position of political neutrality while paradoxically working to change society through political engagement (Yun Reference Sang-ch'ŏl and Hong2004).

After the demise of military rule, the democratic state facilitated not only the growth of the PSPD and citizens' organizations in general, but also their relative decline in a cultural context that has emphasized political neutrality and financial autonomy from the state as moral imperatives for citizens' organizations. With the inauguration of Kim Dae Jung's government in 1998, the relationship between the state and progressive citizens' organizations became cordial and collaborative. As the first dissident president whose political base lay in the marginalized Honam area, Kim paid attention to citizens' organizations in order to promote “participatory democracy,” which was identified as one of his eight major national policy agendas. He personally attended a new year party of the Citizens' Organizations United (simindanch'eyŏnhap), the umbrella organization of progressive citizens' organizations, in January 1998 before his inauguration, and President Roh Moo Hyun did the same in January 2003 (Dong-A Daily, January 4, 2008).

During the past decade, a few dozens of officers of the PSPD and other citizens' organizations were invited to join various government committees and advisory boards to deliberate policy issues, and a handful of them were appointed to government offices, especially during Roh Moo Hyun's administration (February 2003–February 2008).Footnote ¹⁵ Many activists involved in citizens' organizations were elected to the National Assembly and local assemblies. The public perceived the growing collaboration between the PSPD and the democratic state as a sign that its political neutrality had been breached without distinguishing participation in government committees from appointment to government offices. This distinction became meaningless in the Korean cultural context, in which the public is overly sensitive to moral imperatives as a source of legitimacy for citizens' organizations. The mass media portrayed different forms of collaboration with the state as a problem of “citizens' movements' becoming a political power block” (siminundongŭi chŏngch'iseryŏkhwa).Footnote ¹⁶ Exploiting the public's strong distrust of and even disgust with institutionalized politics in Korea, conservative organizations and media have charged progressive citizens' organizations with being “politically motivated” (Kim Reference Chŏng-hun and Hong2004, 48–50).

Responding to this widespread criticism, the PSPD announced its political neutrality during the 2007 presidential race (Han'guk Daily, March 5, 2007). Yet after the election of Lee Myŏng-bak in December 2007, members of the National New Right United, an umbrella organization of conservative citizens' organizations, explicitly announced their plan to run in the parliamentary elections in April 2008 (Segye Daily, January 17, 2008). Lee, as president-elect, visited an end-of-the-year party and a new year party of the National New Right United (Segye Daily, January 15, 2008). This line of development further undermined the moral authority of citizens' organizations in the public's eyes.Footnote ¹⁷

In conjunction with these moral imperatives, the democratic state in post–military rule Korea has shaped the PSPD into a hybrid of advocacy and membership through its old funding practice and new funding policy. The old funding practice refers to regular subsidies given to progovernment organizations (kwanbyŏndanch'e), which originated in the funding of the Freedom League Headquarters (chayuch'ongyŏnmaeng), a major anticommunist organization that was established in 1949. As a core strategy of co-opting voluntary associations under the authoritarian state, this old form of funding outlived military rule and has been criticized by progressive citizens' organizations. Although formally abolished in 2004, the inveterate practice has persisted at the local level of municipal and provincial governments because the former progovernment organizations with multilevel networks continue to be immensely helpful for winning elections. In 2004, almost 60 percent of the state subsidies for voluntary associations were distributed among thirteen such progovernment organizations, and 27.7 percent of the total subsidies were granted to the three largest: the Freedom League Headquarters, the New Village Headquarters (saemaŭljunganghoe), and the Right Living Council (parŭgesalgihyŏbŭihoe).

Introduced under the Non-Profit Civil Organizations Support Law (piyŏngnimingandanch'e chiwŏnbŏp) in 2000, the new funding policy has dispensed grants for specific projects to be carried out by voluntary associations individually or collaboratively. This project-based funding enables various types of voluntary organizations to submit applications regardless of whether they have registered with the state. While this new funding policy is a positive departure from the old practice, the state's budget for this funding has been small and unstable. Although the maximum subsidy for a project is US $100,000, most organizations have received a few thousand dollars per project (Hangyŏre, April 11, 2007). Although this type of state funding for voluntary organizations has been normalized in Western Europe and North America, the Korean public is generally suspicious of state funding because of the cultural context, which emphasizes the moral imperative of financial autonomy from the state. Consequently, there have been common accusations in the mass media of citizens' organizations receiving money from the state, conflating the old subsidies with the project-based funding.Footnote ¹⁸

In conjunction with the moral imperative of financial autonomy from the state, the specific funding practices discussed earlier have generated the chronic problem of financial insecurity among progressive citizens' organizations like the PSPD, and compels them to rely on membership fees. While membership fees accounted for less than 40 percent of total financing for various types of voluntary organizations, they represented almost 85 percent of the PSPD's financing. The primacy of membership fees is exceptional even among large citizens' organizations (Kyŏnghyang, March 26, 2007), but it is a model that other progressive organizations strive to emulate. The heavy reliance on membership dues separates the PSPD from their American counterparts in several ways. First, professional social movement organizations in the United States are commonly established with grants from private and public foundations. Second, the PSPD needs to pay attention to the recruitment and retention of members as the major source of its financing. In the absence of well-established nonprofit bulk mail rates,Footnote ¹⁹ the PSPD does not use computerized mailing lists, which are commonly used by their American counterparts; instead, volunteer members take turns sending out mail and call individual members from the PSPD building during weekdays.Footnote ²⁰ There are also organizational branches for the purpose of attending to their members. These conditions make citizens' organizations in Korea an amalgam of traditional membership organizations and advocacy groups.

The Interplay Between the Market and Culture in Shaping the PSPD

The market has played intricate, dual roles in shaping the PSPD in the Korean cultural context, which emphasizes moral imperatives for citizens' organizations. First, modern marketing practices have been adopted to help generate the membership dues that fund the PSPD's effort to counterbalance the market with its moral authority. This moral authority is significant to the rise of the PSPD, especially in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis (1997–98), when the profit logic of the market was further strengthened. This countermarket identity, however, is an ongoing struggle rather than a fait accompli given the immense power of the market in postcrisis Korea and the persistent problem of the PSPD's financial insecurity. Second, in the face of this problem, the market remains a major threat to the moral authority of the PSPD, and therefore to its influence on the larger society.

The identity of the PSPD as a counterforce to the market has been evident from its beginning, and it is reflected in my interviewees' shared sense of the PSPD as a community that promotes “economic democratization,” the concept of “sacrifice” as a core value among full-time staff, and the development of a gift economy to supplement the fee-based market model. There is specific historical and social context that accounts for the common goal of interviewees to achieve economic democratization in order to promote the public interest. This context is characterized by a rapidly growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis that has been presided over by a handful of business conglomerates (chaebols) that was fostered by the state and controlled by military and political elites. The PSPD gained public trust while monitoring and exposing the corrupt or irregular business practices of conglomerates that led to the crisis. The once economically secure Korean urban middle class was hit hard by the crisis.Footnote ²¹

Recognizing the PSPD's effort to reform the Korean market, the interviewees describe economic democracy in terms of the availability of upward mobility based on individual hard work and ability as opposed to family background. As SHP, a forty-two-year-old man in the construction business who has a high school diploma, expresses it, it means that “you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work and efforts, regardless of what kind of father you have.” Economic democratization involves the redistribution of wealth to mitigate the growing polarization of society, along with an increase in transparency in the accumulation of wealth, which can expand fair opportunities for ordinary people to improve their material conditions. Many interviewees argue that bribery and other illegal and unethical accumulations of wealth, which are so pervasive in society, undermine economic democracy. A majority of the interviewees question the mantra of economic expansionism, which glorifies continuous economic growth but has in fact produced a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in Korean society; these interviewees are concerned about the “social costs” that are paid disproportionately by the poor and the marginalized in society.

The PSPD's objective of economic democratization generates a loose sense of community among the interviewees. Despite limited opportunities for socializing or face-to-face meetings, this shared understanding serves as a source of solidarity because the interviewees are aware of their nonmainstream views. They often find it difficult to talk to people outside the PSPD because they are either ostracized or frustrated by the huge gap between themselves and others. In particular, young men and women in their twenties and thirties who find their workplace highly “egotistic and conservative” cherish their membership in the PSPD. In a sense, the PSPD functions as a shelter from the inhumane and unjust aspects of society. This sense of community is nurtured by the alternative knowledge that the PSPD provides for its members concerning historical and current affairs, politics, and social issues unavailable in the mainstream mass media. For example, international news in Participatory Society (ch'amyŏsahoe), a PSPD monthly magazine, covers Southeast Asia and the Middle East, going beyond the conventional focus on United States, China, and Japan in the South Korean media.

The PSPD as a counterbalance to the market is observed in the interviewees' recognition that nonmaterial values and nonprofit activities are important to living meaningful lives. All interviewees talk about the PSPD as a vehicle for brining about positive social change and, they are involved in varying degrees of participation in its activities. Seeing their diverse activities as “good work” necessary to change society, interviewees consider their involvement in the PSPD as a way to lead a worthwhile life in two ways. First, it gives them a significant sense of empowerment from seeing that they are making some difference in society through knowledge and action. As articulated by one interviewee, they find their lives worthy when “a group of people with hope act for common interests and justice and we see small and gradual change.” Unlike volunteer services in traditional religious welfare organizations and central or local governments that aim to help those in need, involvement in the PSPD is linked to its specific and systematic efforts to change law and institutional practices. Specific changes accomplished by the PSPD enable interviewees to maintain a positive outlook within the not so positive reality that they hope to change.

Second, involvement in the PSPD provides retired or working interviewees an opportunity to pursue meaningful activities. Involvement in the PSPD is a release from mindless or abhorrent jobs, and for some of the interviewees, it opened up a “different” or “new world.” In particular, retirees in their sixties and women in their fifties and early sixties value their involvement in collective efforts to improve society because their volunteer services make them feel worthy and energized. For those who are still working, involvement in the PSPD (or other citizens' organizations) is a way to “maintain a tie to one's ideals.”

All interviewees see “sacrifice” of the activist staff (gansa) working at the PSPD as a way to offer some balance to the effects of the market. Working long hours for little pay, these staff members, mostly in their twenties and thirties, cannot support themselves and their families with their own monthly income.Footnote ²² Without the means to hire a larger staff, the PSPD is chronically understaffed, overworked, and stressed out. Despite a strong sense of commitment to and satisfaction from their work, within a few years, the staff members become exhausted.Footnote ²³ Most of the interviewees are moved by the activist staff's dedication to the public interest in a society in which most people are concerned with making money and pursuing their own private and familial interests. While some interviewees miss the more personable style of the previous generation of PSPD staff, all interviewees recognize the staff's “sacrifice” and feel compelled to do their own small share to reciprocate it. To many interviewees, the staff embodies the moral authority of the PSPD, whose public credibility stems from its financial independence from the state and big business, its transparent finances, and its tireless organizing to bring about positive change in society. At the same time, the heavy reliance on the staff's sacrifice poses a serious threat to the long-term viability of the PSPD and other progressive citizens' organizations.

Another noteworthy aspect of the PSPD as a counterforce to the market can be seen in the working of the “gift economy” (Strathern Reference Strathern and Strathern1992). While membership fees finance more than 80 percent of the PSPD's operations, the remaining funds come from a variety of gifts from individual members. Members donate office supplies, furniture, equipments, food items, and services to be used by the full-time staff. This practice of gift giving generates a steady flow of items necessary for the PSPD throughout the year. Especially around holidays, small gifts in kind are symbolic recognition of the staff's hard work by members. In the absence of patron grants, and with the moral imperative to remain financially autonomous, such gifts constitute a noncapitalist economic arrangement within this professional social movement organization; such practice helps legitimize the PSPD's position as an organization that can ameliorate some of the negative impact of the market.

However, because it is embedded in the capitalist society, the PSPD is by no means immune to the power of the market. As it attempts to diversify its finances during annual fund-raising events and other special events, it has at times become embroiled in scandals involving alleged requests or for receipt of donations from corporations.Footnote ²⁴ Although it has maintained financial integrity far better than any of the other citizens' organizations, such rare occasions have attracted the mass media attention, particularly from the conservative media critical of its values and objectives.

A recent incident reveals the precarious and ambiguous autonomy of Korean citizens' organizations. In early 2006, the PSPD started a major campaign to raise funds to acquire a new building after urban redevelopment forced it to move out of the building it had rented since 1998 in downtown Seoul. Initially, the PSPD adhered to a strict principle of financial autonomy and only accepted contributions from its individual members (Segye Daily, April 1, 2006). Prior to a fund-raising dinner in April 2006, however, the PSPD sent out invitations to 850 businesses and solicited contributions (the maximum amount was roughly US $5,500). Some of these corporations had been included in the PSPD's report of its investigation on irregular stock dealings of thirty-eight chaebol corporations, generating public suspicion that those corporations were pressured to donate in the face of such allegations (Kyŏnghyang, March 26, 2007; Seoul, April 4, 2006). While it remains ambiguous whether such requests were withdrawn or not, this incident indicates public sensitivity to the moral imperative that citizens' organizations maintain financial autonomy from corporations.

In the following sections, drawing on in-depth interviews and membership surveys, I will discuss the ways in which class and gender have structured individual access to the PSPD.

The Effects of Class and Gender on Grassroots Access to the PSPD

The demographic composition of the PSPD membership reflects the transformation of South Korea into a (post)industrial and urban society. According to a 2004 survey, the majority of the members are white-collar managers (37.3 percent), professionals (20.2 percent), service and sales workers (14.2 percent), or students (12.6 percent). About 70 percent of the members are people in their thirties (43.2 percent) and forties (27.4 percent) who grew up in the decades of rapid industrialization and urbanization under military regimes (Han Reference Chun and Hong2004, 94). Seventy-five percent of the total membership resides in Seoul or in Kyŏnggi Province, which surrounds the capital (PSPD 2004, 346).Footnote ²⁵ It is ironic that the membership of the PSPD is predominantly urban and middle class in light of the PSPD's intention to build a transclass organization.

The PSPD's conscious transclass orientation was a response to a growing schism between two major social movements in the early 1990s (PSPD 2004, 17). The people's movement (minjungundong) was a central force in the dissident movements of the 1980s, which emphasized the interests of the downtrodden strata of industrial workers, urban poor, and peasants. The citizens' movement (siminundong), formally launched by the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ), was founded in 1989 (Moon Reference Moon2005, chap. 4). Introducing the notion of citizen (simin) for the first time, the CCEJ explicitly redefined the agent of social change away from the class-based agent envisioned by the people's movement. According to its mission statement, the CCEJ specified that the agent of the citizens' movement would encompass not only the oppressed, but also “anyone with good will,” regardless of social strata, to eliminate “greed” and “selfishness” in society.Footnote ²⁶ Yet CCEJ activities tended to focus on economic reforms that aimed to restore capitalism as a rational economy, which was very important in the Korean context but fell short of addressing workers' interests. The people's movement was also indifferent to the citizens' movement, which pursued social reform through nonviolent means—not a viable option for workers who continued to face state and employer violence.Footnote ²⁷

At this juncture, the PSPD was established to move beyond this dichotomy, bringing together concern for the oppressed with legal action to monitor and check the powers that be. Many of its founding members were labor activists or tied to the people's movement, and 42.7 percent of its current members identify themselves as supporters of the Democratic Labor Party, founded in 2000 (PSPD 2004, 444). In its mission statement, the PSPD inclusively urged each member of the nation to be the “master” (chuin) who would fight for the “political and socioeconomic human rights” necessary to lead a humane life (PSPD 2004, 40–41).

However, the inclusive intention was not very well realized in the daily activities of the PSPD. Its identity as a professional social movement organization run by university-educated full-time staff advised by academics and lawyers was not conducive to the participation of members in general; working-class members without college degrees particularly felt excluded. The PSPD deserves credit for its use of the courts and the mass media to solve problems, but its accomplishments and innovations did not require mobilizing large numbers of members for strikes, sit-ins, or marches. According to an analysis of its repertoire of movements during the past ten years, the PSPD has concentrated on the dissemination of its positions and opinions on various issues through the mass media (61 percent) and legal means (19 percent), including litigation, petitions, and requests for investigation. Even its use of public meetings and other events that require direct participation of members (19 percent) was often orchestrated for mass media exposure (Hong Il-p'yo Reference Il-p'yo and Hong2004, 114–15). The PSPD's emphasis on professional expertise and legal methods resonated better with college-educated white-collar professionals and managers than with manual laborers and service workers.

This does not mean that less educated people are not attracted to the PSPD. The nature of the PSPD as a progressive social movement organization tends to attract those who are interested in critical thinking and alternative views of society that differ from the hegemonic views inculcated in the populace through primary and secondary schooling and the conservative mass media. While such interests require a certain intellectual orientation that might develop more easily with higher education, formal education is not a must for this intellectual orientation. Regardless of their amount of formal education, almost all my interviewees mentioned their keen interest in reading, discussing with other people, and their desire to learn about past and present social and political issues.Footnote ²⁸

During the past decade or so, the professional orientation in the PSPD grew at the expense of its attention to grassroots participation (Kim and Chŏng Reference Ho-gi, Tong-ch'ŏl and Hong2004, 146). As discussed earlier, this change is a predictable outcome of its organizational identity, which stresses social change through professional analysis of problems and solutions through legal means. It is also linked to the growth of its membership and a generational shift in its leadership and staff. In particular, between 1999 and 2002, membership increased roughly from 2,000 to 14,000 as a result of the PSPD's successful activities and the subsequent mass media attention. Instrumental to this growth was the PSPD-led campaign in the 2000 national election to exclude corrupt politicians from party nominations and to defeat corrupt politicians in national elections. This campaign allied by 400 some citizens' organizations, succeeding in defeating fifty-nine candidates among its list of eighty-six corrupt politicians. Members who joined after the sudden expansion of the membership in the PSPD tend not to have personal connections to the staff and to older members (Han Reference Chun and Hong2004, 100–101). This growth led to an impersonalization of the relationship between members and the full-time staff, indirectly contributing to the move toward more professionalization. In addition, the initial leadership and staff cohorts who had struggled against military regimes were replaced in the 2000s by a younger college-educated generation. This group tends to be more professionally oriented and less bohemian than its predecessors, who worked and hoped for some sort of revolution.

In the process of this growth and change, the hybrid identity of the PSPD as both an advocacy organization and a membership organization has generated tension, largely along class lines. It is not entirely clear whether similar tension exists in other citizens' organizations, as there is a lack of extensive empirical studies at this point, but this study of the PSPD suggests that the organizational structure related to the professional analysis of problems and legal solutions is conducive to the generation of such tension. This bifurcation is visible around members' understanding of the ambiguous boundary between the private and the public. Some interviewees indicate that many people inside and outside the PSPD are “confused” about its role and expect it to solve their “personal problems,” including legal disputes over housing, medical care, and traffic accidents. While these individual problems are often an integral part of public issues, these interviewees argue, the PSPD prioritizes structural social problems and legal reforms to improve society as a whole. They attribute this confusion in part to the lack of proper understanding by the public, and in part to mass media reports on the fabulous accomplishments of the PSPD that led many people to view it as a sort of “magic wand” for solving all their problems. However, other members complain that the PSPD does not pay as much attention as it once did to those personal problems that are also of public interest. They expect very practical support and resources from the PSPD because of their relative lack of cultural and social capital, let alone economic resources.

This class-related understanding of the identity of the PSPD is also visible in different views on the change in the organizational culture in the PSPD. Two poles of the continuum of these varying perceptions are represented by two of my interviewees: NJY, a thirty-six-year-old female researcher with a graduate degree, and, again, SHP, the forty-two-year-old male construction supervisor with a high school diploma. NJY is in favor of the further professionalization of the PSPD, so that it can deal effectively with complex social and political issues at a national level. She believes that it needs to be different from community-based organizations, in which individual members can participate directly in local affairs that immediately affect their lives. SHP, however, is in favor of a return to the PSPD's earlier culture, which was characterized by personal and communal solidarity among the staff and members, who spent a lot of time together working, eating, and socializing over drinks; he believes that the PSPD needs to pay more attention to members' needs and to encourage collaboration between members on various projects, going beyond a mere support role for the staff. The development of the PSPD largely as an urban middle-class organization, despite its initial intention to be an inclusive transclass organization, corroborates the elective affinity between the urban middle class and professional social movement organizations in contemporary America. The PSPD's experience suggests that the structure of the voluntary organization, including its objectives and the means used to achieve them, shapes the composition of its membership despite its intention to build a transclass organization.

The gender composition of the PSPD membership is three-quarters male and one-quarter female.Footnote ²⁹ The overrepresentation of male members in this apparently gender-neutral organization reflects the extent to which gender shapes individual access to civic participation. In contrast to its transclass intentions, the PSPD is rather gender blind in its intentions, paying no specific attention to the gender division of labor within marriage and family. Women's responsibility as unpaid primary caretakers and their second-class position in the labor market seriously affect their membership in the PSPD. Given the insecure and marginal nature of women's paid employment in industrialized Korea,Footnote ³⁰ monthly membership dues can be a significant barrier to women's access to such organizations. Catering to the employed, the PSPD tends to hold most of its events and meetings at night and on the weekends. This scheduling, considerate as it is of the employed, works against women who bear family responsibilities, even if they can afford the membership dues. These structural barriers are reflected in the types of women who participate in the PSPD. During my fieldwork research for ten months, it was difficult to meet a woman member who was in her childbearing or childrearing years. Almost all the women I encountered were either unmarried working women, mostly in their late twenties and early thirties, or housewives in their fifties who had completed their parenting.Footnote ³¹ These demographic characteristics indicate that gender structures individual access to a centralized and professional civic association such as the PSPD. They highlight the extent to which the revived civil society in South Korea is structured by the existing social relations of gender and their asymmetrical effects on citizenship of women and men.

Yet it is important to recognize that women and men are not internally homogeneous groups. Educated middle-class women who are gainfully employed and unmarried can be shielded from the negative consequences of the gender division of labor in marriage and family. Indeed, some of my female interviewees in this position embrace the gender-blind workings of the PSPD, stressing that it is not a women's organization but a citizens' organization. But most of the interviewees in this position recognize the hidden barrier against the majority of women in Korea who are married and do not have secure full-time employment or the growing minority of working mothers who are burdened by the lack of affordable and reliable childcare (just like their counterparts in the United States). The majority of female interviewees conveyed that they would look for more local organizations that could address their concerns as they marry and become mothers. The responses from both groups of interviewees point to an underlying tension between participation in citizens' organizations and the actual lives of women.